Three Rivers (9 page)

During all this little Ava grew up to be a tiny, pretty, young lady. She had been cleverer than Isabel, and had
saved over the years the bits and pieces of money that were given to her, or that she had earned working on Saturdays. Others said that she had her first nickel, and that was true. She borrowed some money from Sam and she had her one year at college; time enough to find herself a young husband not approved of by Kate, but by then it was painstakingly clear that there never could be such a man. As for Sam, well, he listened to Kate. The young couple went to live in Mexico. When Isabel said good-bye to Ava, she saw that smug smile on her sister’s little face when she said, “Well, Isabel, this is one thing I beat you at.”

Ava turned her back on the three of them yet again. She never wrote or spoke to them until she needed them, and that took ten years. There were Christmas cards once a year from Mexico. There were letters from Kate to Mexico once every two weeks, like clockwork. Ava may have been finished with the family, but Kate kept up a front for the postman. The entire town was told that Ava was so rich that she called instead of writing.

Now Kate had another weapon against Isabel. Since Ava was gone, there was only Isabel to help out in their business venture and happy home. But at last Isabel had a possibility of getting away — she was now twenty-one. Of age, so to speak, according to the law, an adult, and Sam and Kate had no legal hold on her.

There followed the years of running away to make a life in New York, and having to leave it periodically because of gall bladder, kidney, or appendicitis trouble, of heart palpitations and the need for someone to take care of Sam, Kate’s last weapon.

Finally Isabel confronted her. Isabel had just completed a three-month stay at home with Kate and Sam while Kate was recovering from an operation. Isabel had announced that she was returning to New York in a few days. The two women decided to have lunch together. They left the shop in the hands of a most competent assistant and off they went to a country restaurant on the banks of the Connecticut river. Kate was clever about Isabel and knew that she would not change her mind for the moment and so was very jolly and amusing, maybe a bit too amusing. They had a delightful lunch, and after, when they were walking through the restaurant gardens to the car, Kate slipped her arm through Isabel’s and told
her how wonderful she was, what a lucky woman she was to have Isabel, etc., etc., etc. Isabel looked down at Kate, who was all but pawing her by this time, and made up her mind.

They settled themselves in the car. Isabel was at the wheel and before she started the car she said, “Kate, please let me go.” Isabel broke down and wept, begging for her freedom. It was a horrifying experience for both of them.

Kate, although very upset, controlled herself. She told Isabel to wipe away her tears. The only thing that she said was, “Go, but don’t come back. When we get home, pack your bags and leave today. There is a six o’clock train, you can make it. I will tell Sam that you had a call from New York and that you had to go. He need not know about this.”

Isabel left that night and Kate never let her enter her house again. Nor did she ever allow her to come to her hometown again. They spoke on the phone once a week, in short, cold, clipped sentences, and met in restaurants fifty miles outside of the city limits about once a year. Birthday calls and gifts were always exchanged, and once every few years they met in New York.

Isabel had her freedom and a great deal of guilt, a legacy from her mother. Kate suddenly became completely wrapped up in her shop and Sam. As for Ava, she was blind to everything, as always.

Isabel slowly opened her eyes, her mind and body still half-asleep. She heard the sound of the heavy airplane motors and focused her eyes out the window — nothing but blackness out there.

She remained in her half-reclining position on her side, too lazy even to shift herself, and turned her head over her shoulder to see if Anthony was asleep. He was gone — was he a dream? No, he was real enough. She returned to staring out into the night.

Slowly closing her eyes again, she had but one thought before dozing off:
The past is with us, like it or not
.

She was in a deep sleep, dreaming that she heard Anthony calling her in a faraway voice.

“Isabel, Isabel.”

It was Anthony, only he was not far away, and it was not a dream; he was whispering something to her. She
started to move, but he stopped her by putting his hand on her shoulder. “Isabel, don’t!” he hissed.

She was wide awake now. “What is it, Anthony?”

“Listen, Isabel, everyone is asleep in the cabin except the backgammon players, and they are not going to come down this way. I was just up forward with them and have told them you are fast asleep. I told them I would read for a while and then finish the movie. That we did not need anything and if we did, we would ring for a steward. We are safe for hours. Don’t move.”

He very slowly and gently pulled the cashmere lap robe off the lower half of her body, saying, “Isabel, I want you. You would like that, I know. That is what you wanted when you came to me.”

Isabel’s heart began to beat quite fast. She whispered, “What if someone does come? It is far too dangerous.”

“I told you that no one will; I’ve seen to it. All you have to do is lie very still. Make no noise,” he warned.

How wonderful it will be to have him inside me again
, Isabel thought.
To have him touch me and fill me
. But she said nothing.

He began unbuttoning her dress from the waist down. She started to move her leg, and he said, “No, no. Don’t move anything. I want to take you the way you are.” Isabel became very excited. She wanted him very much. He folded her dress back, exposing her bottom to the cool air of the cabin.

She lay there on her side in a semifetal position, the top half of her body at a reclining angle, staring at the window. He moved his hand over her hip and down her haunches, easing himself along beside her as he did so. He ran the edge of his hand along the deep crack of her buttocks and followed the line to the soft inside of her thigh, barely touching her pubic hair. He lifted her thigh to push her knee even higher towards her chest, and she felt the outer lips of her vagina separate ever so slightly as he did so. He continued to pull on her knee, which in turn pulled on her thigh, and exposed her slit just a little bit more. Now she could feel the cool air on her exposed genitals. She was enjoying the position and waited excitedly to be taken.

Anthony moved his erect penis down the crack of her ass. He pushed at her anus lightly with its head, and moved on to the soft lips of her partially open cunt, encircled
by curly, dark hair. His penis was very hard now as he laid it along the length of her and pressed gently, then rubbed it back and forth once again before he took it away.

Isabel was madly thrilled. The drone of the motors and the occasional voices of the two players in the distance were hardly audible and seemed to add to the excitement.

She waited for Anthony to reach in and fondle the pink inner lips and her clitoris, but he did not. Instead he piled into her, ramming his way up with such force that she felt him touch her uterus with the tip of his cock. It was so thick that he filled her completely.

She grabbed on her knee to hold back and not scream out in shock at the split-second of excruciating pain. She opened herself even more, and before she could catch her breath and say something, he pulled out and rammed into her even deeper. This time she started to speak, but he quickly put his hand over her mouth as he pulled out slowly, and said, “Shussh. Remember, this is my favorite position. I feel you more this way than any other way. Don’t you remember?”

It was true. She did remember. She moved her head and watched him slowly coming out of her. She looked around, wanting him to see in her face that she remembered.

He bent forward and kissed her on the ear, then said, “This is what you wanted, and this is what I am going to give you. Don’t move.”

And he banged her again and again. Something was wrong, for she was not having the orgasms she once had when they had sex. She thought,
It is over for me
, and decided just to relax and let him bang away. She may not have been having an orgasm, but she felt sexy, and with every thrust he touched her everywhere inside, and she loved that feeling. The more she relaxed, the more sensuous she felt, and suddenly she realized she was no longer dry inside. He was moving just as hard and as deep, but it was in luscious wet and warmth. She could not stop coming — he knew it, and had her again and again.

Isabel was somewhere high and exquisite, and she floated along with her feeling. She wanted to scream out with the joy of it, but bit the pillow instead and kept floating. He held off as long as he could. After he came he
lifted her leg away from her chest and draped it over his thigh. They lay there, jackknifed together. He rested his head on her shoulder and dozed off for a very few minutes. When he opened his eyes and pulled out of Isabel, he took a handkerchief and gently put it between the outer lips of her vagina, then draped the lower half of her dress to cover her nakedness. He stood up and slipped into his trousers, put his shorts into his pocket and fell back onto the seat next to her. Isabel started buttoning the lower half of her dress. He reached over and squeezed her hand, then patted her hair and handed her the lap robe. She turned away from the window and rested square against the back of the seat. She had slowly come back to earth.

Isabel touched his arm. He turned and smiled at her in the dark, picking up the remote control to the TV cassette machine. He punched a button, the light from the TV screen lit them up, and for the first time she saw some of the old Anthony in his eyes. She ran her fingers through the hair that had fallen onto his forehead. He gently took her by the wrist and removed her hand. He turned up the sound and watched what was left of
To Have and Have Not
.

Isabel’s eyes were on the set, but she saw and heard nothing. She was not into the film. The daydreaming had started again. She knew she was wrong in wanting to reach out and touch Anthony: There was simply nothing to get emotional about. So she decided to distract herself.

She thought about Sir Alexis Hyatt and the job that she was going to. How lucky she was to have arrived … to be in a position to get such fine and rare jobs.

She remembered that there was a time, years ago in New York, before the good jobs had come along. Those were the years of night school, and apprenticeship at the Museum of Modern Art. Those were also the years of selling flatirons at Macy’s while waiting for a job as a design consultant with Walter Gropius. Then there was Partridge’s, where she learned about fine French furniture, and Charles Eames, where she learned about contemporary furniture, and the years she was an assistant in the best gallery for modern art in New York. There were the endless lectures and seminars on literature and the history of art — on and on it went. About the only thing that she did not work at was fashion. That was Kate’s
idea, and she would never work at that again. Slowly she picked up her education, and slowly people began to recognize her and her work and search her out. At first the jobs that came were small, and then they grew, as did her reputation as the years went by.

Now she was in a position to pick and choose any job that was offered to her, but if the truth were to be known, winging her way to Egypt for a job was only second best to Meredith Montague. She wondered why she did accept a job that she really did not want and decided it was because when he first called she thought he fancied her.

Well, it was certainly turning out to be an adventure one way or another. She had never made love on an airplane, nor with an old lover who claimed to be a faggot.

Wide-awake now and not at all interested in the film, Isabel found her book on the floor, then reached under the lap robe and, lifting her dress, removed the handkerchief that Anthony had placed between her legs. She rolled it into a little ball and kept it in her left hand. She folded the robe neatly and bent over to place it on her empty seat. Anthony ran his hand over her bottom, but kept his eyes on the film. She turned to him saying, “I am going to my room.”

“Isabel, don’t lock the door,” he said, switching off the TV and standing up. “If it is very quiet and safe, I may come and visit you. Whether I do or I don’t, we must promise each other that this is a one-night thing between us, and when we step off this plane, we will be just two old friends. I meant what I told you before. You are now a dormant part of my life and always will be. That is the way I want it.”

“I understand, Anthony. I’ll leave the door open. You do as you think best for both of us.”

Isabel had control of herself again, and before she started for the room she went to see the backgammon players. Passing the stewards and Gamal, who were fast asleep in their chairs, she made her way quietly and saw the two men were deep in their game. She watched for a few minutes and then it was all over. The fourth game was Alexander’s and he was triumphant, for it was his first win and he was still in the mini-tournament. Before they began again, he poured out some champagne and offered Isabel a glass, which she declined. Did she enjoy her film? Yes, she did, she replied. But she fell asleep.

By the way both men behaved, she was reassured that no one had guessed anything about what had been going on.
Oh, Alexander
, she thought.
How you would have enjoyed watching it all
. She wished both men goodnight, asking Alexander to please have Gamal wake her one hour before landing.

Making her way to the rear of the plane and Sir Alexis’s private room, she passed by Anthony, who was watching the last five minutes of the film. She squeezed his shoulder as she went by.

She bathed, took her book with her to the French bed and slipped between the sheets all clean and naked. Isabel wondered how she would ever be able to face going on a commercial flight again after such luxury. Before she even opened her book she was fast asleep.